Developing a Comprehensive and One-Dimensional Subjective Well-Being Measurement Scale : Evidence from a Belgian Pilot Survey

During recent years, various instruments have been proposed to arrive at a comprehensive study of quality of life assessments. Both for methodological as for theoretical reasons, we claim that single item measurements should not be used in this respect. In this paper we propose a five-item subjective well-being scale, covering various domains of life. A representative pilot survey in Belgium (n=2,080) indicates that the new scale is strongly one-dimensional and internally coherent. A multivariate analysis demonstrates the importance of education, age and having a partner to understand levels of subjective well-being. We argue that this five-item scale could be adopted in future population surveys on subjective well-being.status: publishe